System, apparatus and method for responsive autonomous hardware performance state control of a processor

ABSTRACT

In one embodiment, processor includes a first core to execute instructions, and a power controller to control power consumption of the processor. The power controller may include a hardware performance state controller to control a performance state of the first core autonomously to an operating system, and calculate a target operating frequency for the performance state based at least in part on an energy performance preference hint received from the operating system. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/013,142, filed Jun. 20, 2018 now U.S. Pat. No. 10,955,899, grantedMar. 23, 2021, the content of which is hereby incorporated by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Embodiments relate to power management of a system, and moreparticularly to power management of a multicore processor.

BACKGROUND

Advances in semiconductor processing and logic design have permitted anincrease in the amount of logic that may be present on integratedcircuit devices. As a result, computer system configurations haveevolved from a single or multiple integrated circuits in a system tomultiple hardware threads, multiple cores, multiple devices, and/orcomplete systems on individual integrated circuits. Additionally, as thedensity of integrated circuits has grown, the power requirements forcomputing systems (from embedded systems to servers) have alsoescalated. Furthermore, software inefficiencies, and its requirements ofhardware, have also caused an increase in computing device energyconsumption. In fact, some studies indicate that computing devicesconsume a sizeable percentage of the entire electricity supply for acountry, such as the United States of America. As a result, there is avital need for energy efficiency and conservation associated withintegrated circuits. These needs will increase as servers, desktopcomputers, notebooks, Ultrabooks™, tablets, mobile phones, processors,embedded systems, etc. become even more prevalent (from inclusion in thetypical computer, automobiles, and televisions to biotechnology).

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a portion of a system in accordance with anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a processor in accordance with anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a multi-domain processor in accordance withanother embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an embodiment of a processor including multiple cores.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a micro-architecture of a processor core inaccordance with one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a micro-architecture of a processor core inaccordance with another embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a micro-architecture of a processor core inaccordance with yet another embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of a micro-architecture of a processor core inaccordance with a still further embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of a processor in accordance with anotherembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram of a representative SoC in accordance with anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram of another example SoC in accordance with anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram of an example system with which embodimentscan be used.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram of another example system with whichembodiments may be used.

FIG. 14 is a block diagram of a representative computer system.

FIG. 15 is a block diagram of a system in accordance with an embodimentof the present invention.

FIG. 16 is a block diagram illustrating an IP core development systemused to manufacture an integrated circuit to perform operationsaccording to an embodiment.

FIG. 17 is an operation flow for autonomous hardware performance statecontrol in accordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 18 is a flow diagram of a method in accordance with an embodimentof the present invention.

FIG. 19 is a flow diagram of a method in accordance with anotherembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 20 is a flow diagram of a method in accordance with still anotherembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 21 is a block diagram of a power controller in accordance with anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 22 is a graphical illustration of improved user responsiveness ofhardware performance state control in accordance with an embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In various embodiments, a processor or other system on chip (SoC)includes a power controller that may, autonomously to an operatingsystem (OS) or other system software, control performance states(P-states) of one or more processor cores or other processing elementsof the processor. By using a hardware performance state (HWP)controller, reduced latency may be realized for dynamically determiningan appropriate performance state and controlling entry into and exitfrom such performance state.

This autonomous power control enables greater allocation of poweravailable to the processor in a manner that may increase performance.The autonomous hardware power control can be based at least in part onconfiguration parameters provided by an OS, virtual machine monitor(VMM), or other system software. In embodiments, a processor may includea power controller that can perform dynamic performance control ofperformance states of one or more cores or other processing circuits ofthe processor according to an OS-based mechanism such as an AdvancedConfiguration and Power Interface (ACPI) mechanism or other OS nativesupport. Still further, this power controller can autonomously selectperformance states while utilizing OS and/or thread-supplied performanceguidance hints, referred to as HWP or Intel® Speed Shift Technology.When HWP is active, processor hardware such as the power controller mayautonomously select performance states as deemed appropriate for theapplied workload and with consideration of, e.g., OS-based hints,including minimum and maximum performance limits, preference towardsenergy efficiency or performance, and the specification of a relevantworkload history observation time window, as examples.

Still further, with embodiments as described herein, the HWP controlleror other performance state control hardware mechanism may receive anduse the hint information provided by the OS to determine an appropriateperformance state and effect such control with low latency in auser-responsive manner. Although the scope of the present invention isnot limited in this regard, in embodiments the hint information providedby the OS or other system software may be in the form of a hint valuethat provides an indication of a relative preference between performanceand energy conservation. As the OS or other system software has a betterunderstanding of the nature of particular workloads to be executed(e.g., whether they are compute-intensive, memory-intensive, user-facingor so forth) and system environment (including whether a system isoperating on battery or AC power), this hint information may beleveraged in identifying an appropriate performance state.

Still further, embodiments may leverage the expectation that future OSswill provide hint information at higher frequencies than currentlyavailable. Embodiments may leverage this information in a more robustand low latency manner to determine appropriate performance states basedat least in part on this hint information.

Although embodiments herein describe this hint information in the formof a so-called energy performance preference (EPP) value, which may beprovided by the OS to hardware circuitry of the processor, the scope ofthe present invention is not limited in this regard. That is, in otherembodiments scheduler-based hint information may be received in othermanners and potentially from other entities. Further as will bedescribed herein, the HWP controller may directly use this hintinformation to determine an appropriate performance state and causecontrol circuitry of the processor to effect updates to currentperformance states.

In contrast, typical autonomous P-state techniques control operatingfrequency based only on average active state utilization and currentfrequency, and instead set utilization thresholds for makingincrease/decrease frequency decisions according to an EPP value. As aresult, these typical mechanisms are not fast enough in adapting tochanges to the EPP value. Stated another way, with a typical technique,when an EPP change occurs it takes a relatively long time and multiplefrequency changes to settle on an appropriate frequency, due to theiterative nature of this typical control technique. For example, withthis typical technique, it may take approximately 15 milliseconds ormore for a performance state change to iterate to a final result.Instead with an embodiment, a total time for changing performance statein response to an EPP change may be on the order of approximately 1 ms.

In an embodiment, a P-state control algorithm in accordance with anembodiment is based on Amdahl's law. Such algorithm operates to directlypredict a target frequency that brings the active state utilization(also referred to herein as C0 utilization) to a target level, based onan average C0 utilization (and thus is robust to short changes in C0utilization), average frequency (and thus is robust to short changes infrequency), and target utilization which depends on EPP. Since thetarget utilization is derived from the EPP value itself and thealgorithm directly predicts a target frequency to achieve to the targetutilization, the algorithm responds very fast to EPP changes. As such,embodiments can track EPP changes very fast (in one cycle of thealgorithm) while being robust to short changes in frequency orutilization. Using an embodiment, immediate responses to changes inperformance state may be realized when an OS changes the energyperformance preference. Following the OS change, in a single iterationof an HWP control algorithm, the hardware calculates a target operatingfrequency that brings the C0 utilization to the OS target utilization.

Although the following embodiments are described with reference toenergy conservation and energy efficiency in specific integratedcircuits, such as in computing platforms or processors, otherembodiments are applicable to other types of integrated circuits andlogic devices. Similar techniques and teachings of embodiments describedherein may be applied to other types of circuits or semiconductordevices that may also benefit from better energy efficiency and energyconservation. For example, the disclosed embodiments are not limited toany particular type of computer systems. That is, disclosed embodimentscan be used in many different system types, ranging from servercomputers (e.g., tower, rack, blade, micro-server and so forth),communications systems, storage systems, desktop computers of anyconfiguration, laptop, notebook, and tablet computers (including 2:1tablets, phablets and so forth), and may be also used in other devices,such as handheld devices, systems on chip (SoCs), and embeddedapplications. Some examples of handheld devices include cellular phonessuch as smartphones, Internet protocol devices, digital cameras,personal digital assistants (PDAs), and handheld PCs. Embeddedapplications may typically include a microcontroller, a digital signalprocessor (DSP), network computers (NetPC), set-top boxes, network hubs,wide area network (WAN) switches, wearable devices, or any other systemthat can perform the functions and operations taught below. More so,embodiments may be implemented in mobile terminals having standard voicefunctionality such as mobile phones, smartphones and phablets, and/or innon-mobile terminals without a standard wireless voice functioncommunication capability, such as many wearables, tablets, notebooks,desktops, micro-servers, servers and so forth. Moreover, theapparatuses, methods, and systems described herein are not limited tophysical computing devices, but may also relate to softwareoptimizations for energy conservation and efficiency. As will becomereadily apparent in the description below, the embodiments of methods,apparatuses, and systems described herein (whether in reference tohardware, firmware, software, or a combination thereof) are vital to a‘green technology’ future, such as for power conservation and energyefficiency in products that encompass a large portion of the US economy.

Referring now to FIG. 1, shown is a block diagram of a portion of asystem in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Asshown in FIG. 1, system 100 may include various components, including aprocessor 110 which as shown is a multicore processor. Processor 110 maybe coupled to a power supply 150 via an external voltage regulator 160,which may perform a first voltage conversion to provide a primaryregulated voltage to processor 110.

As seen, processor 110 may be a single die processor including multiplecores 120 _(a)-120 _(n). In addition, each core may be associated withan integrated voltage regulator (IVR) 125 _(a)-125 _(n) which receivesthe primary regulated voltage and generates an operating voltage to beprovided to one or more agents of the processor associated with the IVR.Accordingly, an IVR implementation may be provided to allow forfine-grained control of voltage and thus power and performance of eachindividual core. As such, each core can operate at an independentvoltage and frequency, enabling great flexibility and affording wideopportunities for balancing power consumption with performance. In someembodiments, the use of multiple IVRs enables the grouping of componentsinto separate power planes, such that power is regulated and supplied bythe IVR to only those components in the group. During power management,a given power plane of one IVR may be powered down or off when theprocessor is placed into a certain low power state, while another powerplane of another IVR remains active, or fully powered.

Still referring to FIG. 1, additional components may be present withinthe processor including an input/output interface 132, another interface134, and an integrated memory controller 136. As seen, each of thesecomponents may be powered by another integrated voltage regulator 125_(x). In one embodiment, interface 132 may be enable operation for anIntel®. Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) interconnect, which provides forpoint-to-point (PtP) links in a cache coherent protocol that includesmultiple layers including a physical layer, a link layer and a protocollayer. In turn, interface 134 may communicate via a Peripheral ComponentInterconnect Express (PCIe™) protocol.

Also shown is a power control unit (PCU) 138, which may includehardware, software and/or firmware to perform power managementoperations with regard to processor 110. As seen, PCU 138 providescontrol information to external voltage regulator 160 via a digitalinterface to cause the voltage regulator to generate the appropriateregulated voltage. PCU 138 also provides control information to IVRs 125via another digital interface to control the operating voltage generated(or to cause a corresponding IVR to be disabled in a low power mode). Invarious embodiments, PCU 138 may include a variety of power managementlogic units to perform hardware-based power management. Such powermanagement may be wholly processor controlled (e.g., by variousprocessor hardware, and which may be triggered by workload and/or power,thermal or other processor constraints) and/or the power management maybe performed responsive to external sources (such as a platform ormanagement power management source or system software).

Furthermore, while FIG. 1 shows an implementation in which PCU 138 is aseparate processing engine (which may be implemented as amicrocontroller), understand that in some cases in addition to orinstead of a dedicated power controller, each core may include or beassociated with a power control agent to more autonomously control powerconsumption independently. In some cases a hierarchical power managementarchitecture may be provided, with PCU 138 in communication withcorresponding power management agents associated with each of cores 120.

One power management logic unit included in PCU 138 may be a hardwareperformance state controller. Such hardware performance state controllermay be implemented as a hardware circuit that can autonomously controlperformance states of one or more cores 120 or other logic units ofprocessor 110. In some cases, the hardware performance state controllermay directly use the hint information provided by an OS to autonomouslydetermine an appropriate performance state. Additional power control maybe performed in some cases in response to information from a managementcontroller 170, which is a processor-external hardware component ofsystem 100. Although the scope of the present invention is not limitedin this regard, in embodiments management controller 170 may beimplemented as a power management integrated circuit (PMIC), baseboardmanagement controller or so forth.

While not shown for ease of illustration, understand that additionalcomponents may be present within processor 110 such as additionalcontrol circuitry, and other components such as internal memories, e.g.,one or more levels of a cache memory hierarchy and so forth.Furthermore, while shown in the implementation of FIG. 1 with anintegrated voltage regulator, embodiments are not so limited.

Note that the power management techniques described herein may beindependent of and complementary to an operating system (OS)-based powermanagement (OSPM) mechanism. According to one example OSPM technique, aprocessor can operate at various performance states or levels, so-calledP-states, namely from P0 to PN. In general, the P1 performance state maycorrespond to the highest guaranteed performance state that can berequested by an OS. Embodiments described herein may enable dynamicchanges to the guaranteed frequency of the P1 performance state, basedon a variety of inputs and processor operating parameters. In additionto this P1 state, the OS can further request a higher performance state,namely a P0 state. This P0 state may thus be an opportunistic or turbomode state in which, when power and/or thermal budget is available,processor hardware can configure the processor or at least portionsthereof to operate at a higher than guaranteed frequency. In manyimplementations a processor can include multiple so-called binfrequencies above the P1 guaranteed maximum frequency, exceeding to amaximum peak frequency of the particular processor, as fused orotherwise written into the processor during manufacture. In addition,according to one OSPM mechanism, a processor can operate at variouspower states or levels. With regard to power states, an OSPM mechanismmay specify different power consumption states, generally referred to asC-states, C0, C1 to Cn states. When a core is active, it runs at a C0state, and when the core is idle it may be placed in a core low powerstate, also called a core non-zero C-state (e.g., C1-C6 states), witheach C-state being at a lower power consumption level (such that C6 is adeeper low power state than C1, and so forth).

Understand that many different types of power management techniques maybe used individually or in combination in different embodiments. Asrepresentative examples, a power controller may control the processor tobe power managed by some form of dynamic voltage frequency scaling(DVFS) in which an operating voltage and/or operating frequency of oneor more cores or other processor logic may be dynamically controlled toreduce power consumption in certain situations. In an example, DVFS maybe performed using Enhanced Intel SpeedStep™ technology available fromIntel Corporation, Santa Clara, Calif., to provide optimal performanceat a lowest power consumption level. In another example, DVFS may beperformed using Intel TurboBoost™ technology to enable one or more coresor other compute engines to operate at a higher than guaranteedoperating frequency based on conditions (e.g., workload andavailability).

Another power management technique that may be used in certain examplesis dynamic swapping of workloads between different compute engines. Forexample, the processor may include asymmetric cores or other processingengines that operate at different power consumption levels, such that ina power constrained situation, one or more workloads can be dynamicallyswitched to execute on a lower power core or other compute engine.Another exemplary power management technique is hardware duty cycling(HDC), which may cause cores and/or other compute engines to beperiodically enabled and disabled according to a duty cycle, such thatone or more cores may be made inactive during an inactive period of theduty cycle and made active during an active period of the duty cycle.Although described with these particular examples, understand that manyother power management techniques may be used in particular embodiments.

Embodiments can be implemented in processors for various marketsincluding server processors, desktop processors, mobile processors andso forth. Referring now to FIG. 2, shown is a block diagram of aprocessor in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Asshown in FIG. 2, processor 200 may be a multicore processor including aplurality of cores 210 _(a)-210 _(n). In one embodiment, each such coremay be of an independent power domain and can be configured to enter andexit active states and/or maximum performance states based on workload.The various cores may be coupled via an interconnect 215 to a systemagent 220 that includes various components. As seen, system agent 220may include a shared cache 230 which may be a last level cache. Inaddition, the system agent may include an integrated memory controller240 to communicate with a system memory (not shown in FIG. 2), e.g., viaa memory bus. System agent 220 also includes various interfaces 250 anda power control unit 255, which may include logic to perform the powermanagement techniques described herein. In the embodiment shown, powercontrol unit 255 includes hardware performance state control logic (HCL)258 that may perform autonomous performance state control withinprocessor 200 to determine an appropriate performance state directlyusing OS-provided hints, as described herein. In an embodiment, HCL 258may calculate a target operating frequency for the determinedperformance state for one or more cores 210 based at least in part on anEPP hint received from the OS, as described herein.

In addition, by interfaces 250 a-250 n, connection can be made tovarious off-chip components such as peripheral devices, mass storage andso forth. While shown with this particular implementation in theembodiment of FIG. 2, the scope of the present invention is not limitedin this regard.

Referring now to FIG. 3, shown is a block diagram of a multi-domainprocessor in accordance with another embodiment of the presentinvention. As shown in the embodiment of FIG. 3, processor 300 includesmultiple domains. Specifically, a core domain 310 can include aplurality of cores 310 ₀-310 _(n), a graphics domain 320 can include oneor more graphics engines, and a system agent domain 350 may further bepresent. In some embodiments, system agent domain 350 may execute at anindependent frequency than the core domain and may remain powered on atall times to handle power control events and power management such thatdomains 310 and 320 can be controlled to dynamically enter into and exithigh power and low power states. Each of domains 310 and 320 may operateat different voltage and/or power. Note that while only shown with threedomains, understand the scope of the present invention is not limited inthis regard and additional domains can be present in other embodiments.For example, multiple core domains may be present each including atleast one core.

In general, each core 310 may further include low level caches inaddition to various execution units and additional processing elements.In turn, the various cores may be coupled to each other and to a sharedcache memory formed of a plurality of units of a last level cache (LLC)340 ₀-340 _(n). In various embodiments, LLC 340 may be shared amongstthe cores and the graphics engine, as well as various media processingcircuitry. As seen, a ring interconnect 330 thus couples the corestogether, and provides interconnection between the cores, graphicsdomain 320 and system agent circuitry 350. In one embodiment,interconnect 330 can be part of the core domain. However in otherembodiments the ring interconnect can be of its own domain.

As further seen, system agent domain 350 may include display controller352 which may provide control of and an interface to an associateddisplay. As further seen, system agent domain 350 may include a powercontrol unit 355 which can include logic to perform the power managementtechniques described herein. In the embodiment shown, power control unit355 includes a hardware performance state control logic 359 which may,inter alia, directly use OS-provided hint information to calculate atarget operating frequency for an appropriate performance state for oneor more of cores 310.

As further seen in FIG. 3, processor 300 can further include anintegrated memory controller (IMC) 370 that can provide for an interfaceto a system memory, such as a dynamic random access memory (DRAM).Multiple interfaces 380 ₀-380 _(n) may be present to enableinterconnection between the processor and other circuitry. For example,in one embodiment at least one direct media interface (DMI) interfacemay be provided as well as one or more PCIe™ interfaces. Still further,to provide for communications between other agents such as additionalprocessors or other circuitry, one or more QPI interfaces may also beprovided. Although shown at this high level in the embodiment of FIG. 3,understand the scope of the present invention is not limited in thisregard.

Referring to FIG. 4, an embodiment of a processor including multiplecores is illustrated. Processor 400 includes any processor or processingdevice, such as a microprocessor, an embedded processor, a digitalsignal processor (DSP), a network processor, a handheld processor, anapplication processor, a co-processor, a system on a chip (SoC), orother device to execute code. Processor 400, in one embodiment, includesat least two cores—cores 401 and 402, which may include asymmetric coresor symmetric cores (the illustrated embodiment). However, processor 400may include any number of processing elements that may be symmetric orasymmetric.

In one embodiment, a processing element refers to hardware or logic tosupport a software thread. Examples of hardware processing elementsinclude: a thread unit, a thread slot, a thread, a process unit, acontext, a context unit, a logical processor, a hardware thread, a core,and/or any other element, which is capable of holding a state for aprocessor, such as an execution state or architectural state. In otherwords, a processing element, in one embodiment, refers to any hardwarecapable of being independently associated with code, such as a softwarethread, operating system, application, or other code. A physicalprocessor typically refers to an integrated circuit, which potentiallyincludes any number of other processing elements, such as cores orhardware threads.

A core often refers to logic located on an integrated circuit capable ofmaintaining an independent architectural state, wherein eachindependently maintained architectural state is associated with at leastsome dedicated execution resources. In contrast to cores, a hardwarethread typically refers to any logic located on an integrated circuitcapable of maintaining an independent architectural state, wherein theindependently maintained architectural states share access to executionresources. As can be seen, when certain resources are shared and othersare dedicated to an architectural state, the line between thenomenclature of a hardware thread and core overlaps. Yet often, a coreand a hardware thread are viewed by an operating system as individuallogical processors, where the operating system is able to individuallyschedule operations on each logical processor.

Physical processor 400, as illustrated in FIG. 4, includes two cores,cores 401 and 402. Here, cores 401 and 402 are considered symmetriccores, i.e., cores with the same configurations, functional units,and/or logic. In another embodiment, core 401 includes an out-of-orderprocessor core, while core 402 includes an in-order processor core.However, cores 401 and 402 may be individually selected from any type ofcore, such as a native core, a software managed core, a core adapted toexecute a native instruction set architecture (ISA), a core adapted toexecute a translated ISA, a co-designed core, or other known core. Yetto further the discussion, the functional units illustrated in core 401are described in further detail below, as the units in core 402 operatein a similar manner.

As depicted, core 401 includes two hardware threads 401 a and 401 b,which may also be referred to as hardware thread slots 401 a and 401 b.Therefore, software entities, such as an operating system, in oneembodiment potentially view processor 400 as four separate processors,i.e., four logical processors or processing elements capable ofexecuting four software threads concurrently. As alluded to above, afirst thread is associated with architecture state registers 401 a, asecond thread is associated with architecture state registers 401 b, athird thread may be associated with architecture state registers 402 a,and a fourth thread may be associated with architecture state registers402 b. Here, each of the architecture state registers (401 a, 401 b, 402a, and 402 b) may be referred to as processing elements, thread slots,or thread units, as described above. As illustrated, architecture stateregisters 401 a are replicated in architecture state registers 401 b, soindividual architecture states/contexts are capable of being stored forlogical processor 401 a and logical processor 401 b. In core 401, othersmaller resources, such as instruction pointers and renaming logic inallocator and renamer block 430 may also be replicated for threads 401 aand 401 b. Some resources, such as re-order buffers inreorder/retirement unit 435, ILTB 420, load/store buffers, and queuesmay be shared through partitioning. Other resources, such as generalpurpose internal registers, page-table base register(s), low-leveldata-cache and data-TLB 415, execution unit(s) 440, and portions ofout-of-order unit 435 are potentially fully shared.

Processor 400 often includes other resources, which may be fully shared,shared through partitioning, or dedicated by/to processing elements. InFIG. 4, an embodiment of a purely exemplary processor with illustrativelogical units/resources of a processor is illustrated. Note that aprocessor may include, or omit, any of these functional units, as wellas include any other known functional units, logic, or firmware notdepicted. As illustrated, core 401 includes a simplified, representativeout-of-order (OOO) processor core. But an in-order processor may beutilized in different embodiments. The OOO core includes a branch targetbuffer 420 to predict branches to be executed/taken and aninstruction-translation buffer (I-TLB) 420 to store address translationentries for instructions.

Core 401 further includes decode module 425 coupled to fetch unit 420 todecode fetched elements. Fetch logic, in one embodiment, includesindividual sequencers associated with thread slots 401 a, 401 b,respectively. Usually core 401 is associated with a first ISA, whichdefines/specifies instructions executable on processor 400. Oftenmachine code instructions that are part of the first ISA include aportion of the instruction (referred to as an opcode), whichreferences/specifies an instruction or operation to be performed. Decodelogic 425 includes circuitry that recognizes these instructions fromtheir opcodes and passes the decoded instructions on in the pipeline forprocessing as defined by the first ISA. For example, decoders 425, inone embodiment, include logic designed or adapted to recognize specificinstructions, such as transactional instruction. As a result of therecognition by decoders 425, the architecture or core 401 takesspecific, predefined actions to perform tasks associated with theappropriate instruction. It is important to note that any of the tasks,blocks, operations, and methods described herein may be performed inresponse to a single or multiple instructions; some of which may be newor old instructions.

In one example, allocator and renamer block 430 includes an allocator toreserve resources, such as register files to store instructionprocessing results. However, threads 401 a and 401 b are potentiallycapable of out-of-order execution, where allocator and renamer block 430also reserves other resources, such as reorder buffers to trackinstruction results. Unit 430 may also include a register renamer torename program/instruction reference registers to other registersinternal to processor 400. Reorder/retirement unit 435 includescomponents, such as the reorder buffers mentioned above, load buffers,and store buffers, to support out-of-order execution and later in-orderretirement of instructions executed out-of-order.

Scheduler and execution unit(s) block 440, in one embodiment, includes ascheduler unit to schedule instructions/operation on execution units.For example, a floating point instruction is scheduled on a port of anexecution unit that has an available floating point execution unit.Register files associated with the execution units are also included tostore information instruction processing results. Exemplary executionunits include a floating point execution unit, an integer executionunit, a jump execution unit, a load execution unit, a store executionunit, and other known execution units.

Lower level data cache and data translation buffer (D-TLB) 450 arecoupled to execution unit(s) 440. The data cache is to store recentlyused/operated on elements, such as data operands, which are potentiallyheld in memory coherency states. The D-TLB is to store recentvirtual/linear to physical address translations. As a specific example,a processor may include a page table structure to break physical memoryinto a plurality of virtual pages.

Here, cores 401 and 402 share access to higher-level or further-outcache 410, which is to cache recently fetched elements. Note thathigher-level or further-out refers to cache levels increasing or gettingfurther away from the execution unit(s). In one embodiment, higher-levelcache 410 is a last-level data cache—last cache in the memory hierarchyon processor 400—such as a second or third level data cache. However,higher level cache 410 is not so limited, as it may be associated withor includes an instruction cache. A trace cache—a type of instructioncache—instead may be coupled after decoder 425 to store recently decodedtraces.

In the depicted configuration, processor 400 also includes bus interfacemodule 405 and a power controller 460, which may perform powermanagement in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Inthis scenario, bus interface 405 is to communicate with devices externalto processor 400, such as system memory and other components.

A memory controller 470 may interface with other devices such as one ormany memories. In an example, bus interface 405 includes a ringinterconnect with a memory controller for interfacing with a memory anda graphics controller for interfacing with a graphics processor. In anSoC environment, even more devices, such as a network interface,coprocessors, memory, graphics processor, and any other known computerdevices/interface may be integrated on a single die or integratedcircuit to provide small form factor with high functionality and lowpower consumption.

Referring now to FIG. 5, shown is a block diagram of amicro-architecture of a processor core in accordance with one embodimentof the present invention. As shown in FIG. 5, processor core 500 may bea multi-stage pipelined out-of-order processor. Core 500 may operate atvarious voltages based on a received operating voltage, which may bereceived from an integrated voltage regulator or external voltageregulator.

As seen in FIG. 5, core 500 includes front end units 510, which may beused to fetch instructions to be executed and prepare them for use laterin the processor pipeline. For example, front end units 510 may includea fetch unit 501, an instruction cache 503, and an instruction decoder505. In some implementations, front end units 510 may further include atrace cache, along with microcode storage as well as a micro-operationstorage. Fetch unit 501 may fetch macro-instructions, e.g., from memoryor instruction cache 503, and feed them to instruction decoder 505 todecode them into primitives, i.e., micro-operations for execution by theprocessor.

Coupled between front end units 510 and execution units 520 is anout-of-order (OOO) engine 515 that may be used to receive themicro-instructions and prepare them for execution. More specifically OOOengine 515 may include various buffers to re-order micro-instructionflow and allocate various resources needed for execution, as well as toprovide renaming of logical registers onto storage locations withinvarious register files such as register file 530 and extended registerfile 535. Register file 530 may include separate register files forinteger and floating point operations. Extended register file 535 mayprovide storage for vector-sized units, e.g., 256 or 512 bits perregister. For purposes of configuration, control, and additionaloperations, a set of machine specific registers (MSRs) 538 may also bepresent and accessible to various logic within core 500 (and external tothe core) such as HWP MSRs.

Various resources may be present in execution units 520, including, forexample, various integer, floating point, and single instructionmultiple data (SIMD) logic units, among other specialized hardware. Forexample, such execution units may include one or more arithmetic logicunits (ALUs) 522 and one or more vector execution units 524, among othersuch execution units.

Results from the execution units may be provided to retirement logic,namely a reorder buffer (ROB) 540. More specifically, ROB 540 mayinclude various arrays and logic to receive information associated withinstructions that are executed. This information is then examined by ROB540 to determine whether the instructions can be validly retired andresult data committed to the architectural state of the processor, orwhether one or more exceptions occurred that prevent a proper retirementof the instructions. Of course, ROB 540 may handle other operationsassociated with retirement.

As shown in FIG. 5, ROB 540 is coupled to a cache 550 which, in oneembodiment may be a low level cache (e.g., an L1 cache) although thescope of the present invention is not limited in this regard. Also,execution units 520 can be directly coupled to cache 550. From cache550, data communication may occur with higher level caches, systemmemory and so forth. While shown with this high level in the embodimentof FIG. 5, understand the scope of the present invention is not limitedin this regard. For example, while the implementation of FIG. 5 is withregard to an out-of-order machine such as of an Intel® x86 instructionset architecture (ISA), the scope of the present invention is notlimited in this regard. That is, other embodiments may be implemented inan in-order processor, a reduced instruction set computing (RISC)processor such as an ARM-based processor, or a processor of another typeof ISA that can emulate instructions and operations of a different ISAvia an emulation engine and associated logic circuitry.

Referring now to FIG. 6, shown is a block diagram of amicro-architecture of a processor core in accordance with anotherembodiment. In the embodiment of FIG. 6, core 600 may be a low powercore of a different micro-architecture, such as an Intel®. Atom™-basedprocessor having a relatively limited pipeline depth designed to reducepower consumption. As seen, core 600 includes an instruction cache 610coupled to provide instructions to an instruction decoder 615. A branchpredictor 605 may be coupled to instruction cache 610. Note thatinstruction cache 610 may further be coupled to another level of a cachememory, such as an L2 cache (not shown for ease of illustration in FIG.6). In turn, instruction decoder 615 provides decoded instructions to anissue queue 620 for storage and delivery to a given execution pipeline.A microcode ROM 618 is coupled to instruction decoder 615.

A floating point pipeline 630 includes a floating point register file632 which may include a plurality of architectural registers of a givenbit with such as 128, 256 or 512 bits. Pipeline 630 includes a floatingpoint scheduler 634 to schedule instructions for execution on one ofmultiple execution units of the pipeline. In the embodiment shown, suchexecution units include an ALU 635, a shuffle unit 636, and a floatingpoint adder 638. In turn, results generated in these execution units maybe provided back to buffers and/or registers of register file 632. Ofcourse understand while shown with these few example execution units,additional or different floating point execution units may be present inanother embodiment.

An integer pipeline 640 also may be provided. In the embodiment shown,pipeline 640 includes an integer register file 642 which may include aplurality of architectural registers of a given bit with such as 128 or256 bits. Pipeline 640 includes an integer scheduler 644 to scheduleinstructions for execution on one of multiple execution units of thepipeline. In the embodiment shown, such execution units include an ALU645, a shifter unit 646, and a jump execution unit 648. In turn, resultsgenerated in these execution units may be provided back to buffersand/or registers of register file 642. Of course understand while shownwith these few example execution units, additional or different integerexecution units may be present in another embodiment.

A memory execution scheduler 650 may schedule memory operations forexecution in an address generation unit 652, which is also coupled to aTLB 654. As seen, these structures may couple to a data cache 660, whichmay be a L0 and/or L1 data cache that in turn couples to additionallevels of a cache memory hierarchy, including an L2 cache memory.

To provide support for out-of-order execution, an allocator/renamer 670may be provided, in addition to a reorder buffer 680, which isconfigured to reorder instructions executed out of order for retirementin order. Although shown with this particular pipeline architecture inthe illustration of FIG. 6, understand that many variations andalternatives are possible.

Note that in a processor having asymmetric cores, such as in accordancewith the micro-architectures of FIGS. 5 and 6, workloads may bedynamically swapped between the cores for power management reasons, asthese cores, although having different pipeline designs and depths, maybe of the same or related ISA. Such dynamic core swapping may beperformed in a manner transparent to a user application (and possiblykernel also).

Referring to FIG. 7, shown is a block diagram of a micro-architecture ofa processor core in accordance with yet another embodiment. Asillustrated in FIG. 7, a core 700 may include a multi-staged in-orderpipeline to execute at very low power consumption levels. As one suchexample, processor 700 may have a micro-architecture in accordance withan ARM Cortex A53 design available from ARM Holdings, LTD., Sunnyvale,Calif. In an implementation, an 8-stage pipeline may be provided that isconfigured to execute both 32-bit and 64-bit code. Core 700 includes afetch unit 710 that is configured to fetch instructions and provide themto a decode unit 715, which may decode the instructions, e.g.,macro-instructions of a given ISA such as an ARMv8 ISA. Note furtherthat a queue 730 may couple to decode unit 715 to store decodedinstructions. Decoded instructions are provided to an issue logic 725,where the decoded instructions may be issued to a given one of multipleexecution units.

With further reference to FIG. 7, issue logic 725 may issue instructionsto one of multiple execution units. In the embodiment shown, theseexecution units include an integer unit 735, a multiply unit 740, afloating point/vector unit 750, a dual issue unit 760, and a load/storeunit 770. The results of these different execution units may be providedto a writeback unit 780. Understand that while a single writeback unitis shown for ease of illustration, in some implementations separatewriteback units may be associated with each of the execution units.Furthermore, understand that while each of the units and logic shown inFIG. 7 is represented at a high level, a particular implementation mayinclude more or different structures. A processor designed using one ormore cores having a pipeline as in FIG. 7 may be implemented in manydifferent end products, extending from mobile devices to server systems.

Referring to FIG. 8, shown is a block diagram of a micro-architecture ofa processor core in accordance with a still further embodiment. Asillustrated in FIG. 8, a core 800 may include a multi-stage multi-issueout-of-order pipeline to execute at very high performance levels (whichmay occur at higher power consumption levels than core 700 of FIG. 7).As one such example, processor 800 may have a microarchitecture inaccordance with an ARM Cortex A57 design. In an implementation, a 15 (orgreater)-stage pipeline may be provided that is configured to executeboth 32-bit and 64-bit code. In addition, the pipeline may provide for 3(or greater)-wide and 3 (or greater)-issue operation. Core 800 includesa fetch unit 810 that is configured to fetch instructions and providethem to a decoder/renamer/dispatcher 815, which may decode theinstructions, e.g., macro-instructions of an ARMv8 instruction setarchitecture, rename register references within the instructions, anddispatch the instructions (eventually) to a selected execution unit.Decoded instructions may be stored in a queue 825. Note that while asingle queue structure is shown for ease of illustration in FIG. 8,understand that separate queues may be provided for each of the multipledifferent types of execution units.

Also shown in FIG. 8 is an issue logic 830 from which decodedinstructions stored in queue 825 may be issued to a selected executionunit. Issue logic 830 also may be implemented in a particular embodimentwith a separate issue logic for each of the multiple different types ofexecution units to which issue logic 830 couples.

Decoded instructions may be issued to a given one of multiple executionunits. In the embodiment shown, these execution units include one ormore integer units 835, a multiply unit 840, a floating point/vectorunit 850, a branch unit 860, and a load/store unit 870. In anembodiment, floating point/vector unit 850 may be configured to handleSIMD or vector data of 128 or 256 bits. Still further, floatingpoint/vector execution unit 850 may perform IEEE-754 double precisionfloating-point operations. The results of these different executionunits may be provided to a writeback unit 880. Note that in someimplementations separate writeback units may be associated with each ofthe execution units. Furthermore, understand that while each of theunits and logic shown in FIG. 8 is represented at a high level, aparticular implementation may include more or different structures.

Note that in a processor having asymmetric cores, such as in accordancewith the micro-architectures of FIGS. 7 and 8, workloads may bedynamically swapped for power management reasons, as these cores,although having different pipeline designs and depths, may be of thesame or related ISA. Such dynamic core swapping may be performed in amanner transparent to a user application (and possibly kernel also).

A processor designed using one or more cores having pipelines as in anyone or more of FIGS. 5-8 may be implemented in many different endproducts, extending from mobile devices to server systems. Referring nowto FIG. 9, shown is a block diagram of a processor in accordance withanother embodiment of the present invention. In the embodiment of FIG.9, processor 900 may be a SoC including multiple domains, each of whichmay be controlled to operate at an independent operating voltage andoperating frequency. As a specific illustrative example, processor 900may be an Intel® Architecture Core™-based processor such as an i3, i5,i7 or another such processor available from Intel Corporation. However,other low power processors such as available from Advanced MicroDevices, Inc. (AMD) of Sunnyvale, Calif., an ARM-based design from ARMHoldings, Ltd. or licensee thereof or a MIPS-based design from MIPSTechnologies, Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., or their licensees or adoptersmay instead be present in other embodiments such as an Apple A7processor, a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, or Texas Instruments OMAPprocessor. Such SoC may be used in a low power system such as asmartphone, tablet computer, phablet computer, Ultrabook™ computer orother portable computing device or connected device.

In the high level view shown in FIG. 9, processor 900 includes aplurality of core units 910 ₀-910 _(n). Each core unit may include oneor more processor cores, one or more cache memories and other circuitry.Each core unit 910 may support one or more instructions sets (e.g., anx86 instruction set (with some extensions that have been added withnewer versions); a MIPS instruction set; an ARM instruction set (withoptional additional extensions such as NEON)) or other instruction setor combinations thereof. Note that some of the core units may beheterogeneous resources (e.g., of a different design). In addition, eachsuch core may be coupled to a cache memory (not shown) which in anembodiment may be a shared level (L2) cache memory. A non-volatilestorage 930 may be used to store various program and other data. Forexample, this storage may be used to store at least portions ofmicrocode, boot information such as a BIOS, other system software or soforth.

Each core unit 910 may also include an interface such as a bus interfaceunit to enable interconnection to additional circuitry of the processor.In an embodiment, each core unit 910 couples to a coherent fabric thatmay act as a primary cache coherent on-die interconnect that in turncouples to a memory controller 935. In turn, memory controller 935controls communications with a memory such as a DRAM (not shown for easeof illustration in FIG. 9).

In addition to core units, additional processing engines are presentwithin the processor, including at least one graphics unit 920 which mayinclude one or more graphics processing units (GPUs) to perform graphicsprocessing as well as to possibly execute general purpose operations onthe graphics processor (so-called GPGPU operation). In addition, atleast one image signal processor 925 may be present. Signal processor925 may be configured to process incoming image data received from oneor more capture devices, either internal to the SoC or off-chip.

Other accelerators also may be present. In the illustration of FIG. 9, avideo coder 950 may perform coding operations including encoding anddecoding for video information, e.g., providing hardware accelerationsupport for high definition video content. A display controller 955further may be provided to accelerate display operations includingproviding support for internal and external displays of a system. Inaddition, a security processor 945 may be present to perform securityoperations such as secure boot operations, various cryptographyoperations and so forth.

Each of the units may have its power consumption controlled via a powermanager 940, which may include control logic to perform the variouspower management techniques described herein.

In some embodiments, SoC 900 may further include a non-coherent fabriccoupled to the coherent fabric to which various peripheral devices maycouple. One or more interfaces 960 a-960 d enable communication with oneor more off-chip devices. Such communications may be via a variety ofcommunication protocols such as PCIe™, GPIO, USB, I²C, UART, MIPI, SDIO,DDR, SPI, HDMI, among other types of communication protocols. Althoughshown at this high level in the embodiment of FIG. 9, understand thescope of the present invention is not limited in this regard.

Referring now to FIG. 10, shown is a block diagram of a representativeSoC. In the embodiment shown, SoC 1000 may be a multi-core SoCconfigured for low power operation to be optimized for incorporationinto a smartphone or other low power device such as a tablet computer orother portable computing device. As an example, SoC 1000 may beimplemented using asymmetric or different types of cores, such ascombinations of higher power and/or low power cores, e.g., out-of-ordercores and in-order cores. In different embodiments, these cores may bebased on an Intel® Architecture™ core design or an ARM architecturedesign. In yet other embodiments, a mix of Intel® and ARM cores may beimplemented in a given SoC.

As seen in FIG. 10, SoC 1000 includes a first core domain 1010 having aplurality of first cores 1012 ₀-1012 ₃. In an example, these cores maybe low power cores such as in-order cores. In one embodiment these firstcores may be implemented as ARM Cortex A53 cores. In turn, these corescouple to a cache memory 1015 of core domain 1010. In addition, SoC 1000includes a second core domain 1020. In the illustration of FIG. 10,second core domain 1020 has a plurality of second cores 1022 ₀-1022 ₃.In an example, these cores may be higher power-consuming cores thanfirst cores 1012. In an embodiment, the second cores may be out-of-ordercores, which may be implemented as ARM Cortex A57 cores. In turn, thesecores couple to a cache memory 1025 of core domain 1020. Note that whilethe example shown in FIG. 10 includes 4 cores in each domain, understandthat more or fewer cores may be present in a given domain in otherexamples.

With further reference to FIG. 10, a graphics domain 1030 also isprovided, which may include one or more graphics processing units (GPUs)configured to independently execute graphics workloads, e.g., providedby one or more cores of core domains 1010 and 1020. As an example, GPUdomain 1030 may be used to provide display support for a variety ofscreen sizes, in addition to providing graphics and display renderingoperations.

As seen, the various domains couple to a coherent interconnect 1040,which in an embodiment may be a cache coherent interconnect fabric thatin turn couples to an integrated memory controller 1050. Coherentinterconnect 1040 may include a shared cache memory, such as an L3cache, in some examples. In an embodiment, memory controller 1050 may bea direct memory controller to provide for multiple channels ofcommunication with an off-chip memory, such as multiple channels of aDRAM (not shown for ease of illustration in FIG. 10).

In different examples, the number of the core domains may vary. Forexample, for a low power SoC suitable for incorporation into a mobilecomputing device, a limited number of core domains such as shown in FIG.10 may be present. Still further, in such low power SoCs, core domain1020 including higher power cores may have fewer numbers of such cores.For example, in one implementation two cores 1022 may be provided toenable operation at reduced power consumption levels. In addition, thedifferent core domains may also be coupled to an interrupt controller toenable dynamic swapping of workloads between the different domains.

In yet other embodiments, a greater number of core domains, as well asadditional optional IP logic may be present, in that an SoC can bescaled to higher performance (and power) levels for incorporation intoother computing devices, such as desktops, servers, high performancecomputing systems, base stations forth. As one such example, 4 coredomains each having a given number of out-of-order cores may beprovided. Still further, in addition to optional GPU support (which asan example may take the form of a GPGPU), one or more accelerators toprovide optimized hardware support for particular functions (e.g. webserving, network processing, switching or so forth) also may beprovided. In addition, an input/output interface may be present tocouple such accelerators to off-chip components.

Referring now to FIG. 11, shown is a block diagram of another exampleSoC. In the embodiment of FIG. 11, SoC 1100 may include variouscircuitry to enable high performance for multimedia applications,communications and other functions. As such, SoC 1100 is suitable forincorporation into a wide variety of portable and other devices, such assmartphones, tablet computers, smart TVs and so forth. In the exampleshown, SoC 1100 includes a central processor unit (CPU) domain 1110. Inan embodiment, a plurality of individual processor cores may be presentin CPU domain 1110. As one example, CPU domain 1110 may be a quad coreprocessor having 4 multithreaded cores. Such processors may behomogeneous or heterogeneous processors, e.g., a mix of low power andhigh power processor cores.

In turn, a GPU domain 1120 is provided to perform advanced graphicsprocessing in one or more GPUs to handle graphics and compute APIs. ADSP unit 1130 may provide one or more low power DSPs for handlinglow-power multimedia applications such as music playback, audio/videoand so forth, in addition to advanced calculations that may occur duringexecution of multimedia instructions. In turn, a communication unit 1140may include various components to provide connectivity via variouswireless protocols, such as cellular communications (including 3G/4GLTE), wireless local area protocols such as Bluetooth™, IEEE 802.11, andso forth.

Still further, a multimedia processor 1150 may be used to performcapture and playback of high definition video and audio content,including processing of user gestures. A sensor unit 1160 may include aplurality of sensors and/or a sensor controller to interface to variousoff-chip sensors present in a given platform. An image signal processor1170 may be provided with one or more separate ISPs to perform imageprocessing with regard to captured content from one or more cameras of aplatform, including still and video cameras.

A display processor 1180 may provide support for connection to a highdefinition display of a given pixel density, including the ability towirelessly communicate content for playback on such display. Stillfurther, a location unit 1190 may include a GPS receiver with supportfor multiple GPS constellations to provide applications highly accuratepositioning information obtained using as such GPS receiver. Understandthat while shown with this particular set of components in the exampleof FIG. 11, many variations and alternatives are possible.

Referring now to FIG. 12, shown is a block diagram of an example systemwith which embodiments can be used. As seen, system 1200 may be asmartphone or other wireless communicator. A baseband processor 1205 isconfigured to perform various signal processing with regard tocommunication signals to be transmitted from or received by the system.In turn, baseband processor 1205 is coupled to an application processor1210, which may be a main CPU of the system to execute an OS and othersystem software, in addition to user applications such as manywell-known social media and multimedia apps. Application processor 1210may further be configured to perform a variety of other computingoperations for the device and perform the power management techniquesdescribed herein.

In turn, application processor 1210 can couple to a userinterface/display 1220, e.g., a touch screen display. In addition,application processor 1210 may couple to a memory system including anon-volatile memory, namely a flash memory 1230 and a system memory,namely a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) 1235. As further seen,application processor 1210 further couples to a capture device 1240 suchas one or more image capture devices that can record video and/or stillimages.

Still referring to FIG. 12, a universal integrated circuit card (UICC)1240 comprising a subscriber identity module and possibly a securestorage and cryptoprocessor is also coupled to application processor1210. System 1200 may further include a security processor 1250 that maycouple to application processor 1210. A plurality of sensors 1225 maycouple to application processor 1210 to enable input of a variety ofsensed information such as accelerometer and other environmentalinformation. An audio output device 1295 may provide an interface tooutput sound, e.g., in the form of voice communications, played orstreaming audio data and so forth.

As further illustrated, a near field communication (NFC) contactlessinterface 1260 is provided that communicates in a NFC near field via anNFC antenna 1265. While separate antennae are shown in FIG. 12,understand that in some implementations one antenna or a different setof antennae may be provided to enable various wireless functionality.

A PMIC 1215 couples to application processor 1210 to perform platformlevel power management. To this end, PMIC 1215 may issue powermanagement requests to application processor 1210 to enter certain lowpower states as desired. Furthermore, based on platform constraints,PMIC 1215 may also control the power level of other components of system1200.

To enable communications to be transmitted and received, variouscircuitry may be coupled between baseband processor 1205 and an antenna1290. Specifically, a radio frequency (RF) transceiver 1270 and awireless local area network (WLAN) transceiver 1275 may be present. Ingeneral, RF transceiver 1270 may be used to receive and transmitwireless data and calls according to a given wireless communicationprotocol such as 3G or 4G wireless communication protocol such as inaccordance with a code division multiple access (CDMA), global systemfor mobile communication (GSM), long term evolution (LTE) or otherprotocol. In addition a GPS sensor 1280 may be present. Other wirelesscommunications such as receipt or transmission of radio signals, e.g.,AM/FM and other signals may also be provided. In addition, via WLANtransceiver 1275, local wireless communications can also be realized.

Referring now to FIG. 13, shown is a block diagram of another examplesystem with which embodiments may be used. In the illustration of FIG.13, system 1300 may be mobile low-power system such as a tabletcomputer, 2:1 tablet, phablet or other convertible or standalone tabletsystem. As illustrated, a SoC 1310 is present and may be configured tooperate as an application processor for the device and perform the powermanagement techniques described herein.

A variety of devices may couple to SoC 1310. In the illustration shown,a memory subsystem includes a flash memory 1340 and a DRAM 1345 coupledto SoC 1310. In addition, a touch panel 1320 is coupled to the SoC 1310to provide display capability and user input via touch, includingprovision of a virtual keyboard on a display of touch panel 1320. Toprovide wired network connectivity, SoC 1310 couples to an Ethernetinterface 1330. A peripheral hub 1325 is coupled to SoC 1310 to enableinterfacing with various peripheral devices, such as may be coupled tosystem 1300 by any of various ports or other connectors.

In addition to internal power management circuitry and functionalitywithin SoC 1310, a PMIC 1380 is coupled to SoC 1310 to provideplatform-based power management, e.g., based on whether the system ispowered by a battery 1390 or AC power via an AC adapter 1395. Inaddition to this power source-based power management, PMIC 1380 mayfurther perform platform power management activities based onenvironmental and usage conditions. Still further, PMIC 1380 maycommunicate control and status information to SoC 1310 to cause variouspower management actions within SoC 1310.

Still referring to FIG. 13, to provide for wireless capabilities, a WLANunit 1350 is coupled to SoC 1310 and in turn to an antenna 1355. Invarious implementations, WLAN unit 1350 may provide for communicationaccording to one or more wireless protocols.

As further illustrated, a plurality of sensors 1360 may couple to SoC1310. These sensors may include various accelerometer, environmental andother sensors, including user gesture sensors. Finally, an audio codec1365 is coupled to SoC 1310 to provide an interface to an audio outputdevice 1370. Of course understand that while shown with this particularimplementation in FIG. 13, many variations and alternatives arepossible.

Referring now to FIG. 14, shown is a block diagram of a representativecomputer system such as notebook, Ultrabook™ or other small form factorsystem. A processor 1410, in one embodiment, includes a microprocessor,multi-core processor, multithreaded processor, an ultra low voltageprocessor, an embedded processor, or other known processing element. Inthe illustrated implementation, processor 1410 acts as a main processingunit and central hub for communication with many of the variouscomponents of the system 1400. As one example, processor 1400 isimplemented as a SoC.

Processor 1410, in one embodiment, communicates with a system memory1415. As an illustrative example, the system memory 1415 is implementedvia multiple memory devices or modules to provide for a given amount ofsystem memory.

To provide for persistent storage of information such as data,applications, one or more operating systems and so forth, a mass storage1420 may also couple to processor 1410. In various embodiments, toenable a thinner and lighter system design as well as to improve systemresponsiveness, this mass storage may be implemented via a SSD or themass storage may primarily be implemented using a hard disk drive (HDD)with a smaller amount of SSD storage to act as a SSD cache to enablenon-volatile storage of context state and other such information duringpower down events so that a fast power up can occur on re-initiation ofsystem activities. Also shown in FIG. 14, a flash device 1422 may becoupled to processor 1410, e.g., via a serial peripheral interface(SPI). This flash device may provide for non-volatile storage of systemsoftware, including a basic input/output software (BIOS) as well asother firmware of the system.

Various input/output (I/O) devices may be present within system 1400.Specifically shown in the embodiment of FIG. 14 is a display 1424 whichmay be a high definition LCD or LED panel that further provides for atouch screen 1425. In one embodiment, display 1424 may be coupled toprocessor 1410 via a display interconnect that can be implemented as ahigh performance graphics interconnect. Touch screen 1425 may be coupledto processor 1410 via another interconnect, which in an embodiment canbe an I.sup.2C interconnect. As further shown in FIG. 14, in addition totouch screen 1425, user input by way of touch can also occur via a touchpad 1430 which may be configured within the chassis and may also becoupled to the same I²C interconnect as touch screen 1425.

For perceptual computing and other purposes, various sensors may bepresent within the system and may be coupled to processor 1410 indifferent manners. Certain inertial and environmental sensors may coupleto processor 1410 through a sensor hub 1440, e.g., via an I_(2C)interconnect. In the embodiment shown in FIG. 14, these sensors mayinclude an accelerometer 1441, an ambient light sensor (ALS) 1442, acompass 1443 and a gyroscope 1444. Other environmental sensors mayinclude one or more thermal sensors 1446 which in some embodimentscouple to processor 1410 via a system management bus (SMBus) bus.

Also seen in FIG. 14, various peripheral devices may couple to processor1410 via a low pin count (LPC) interconnect. In the embodiment shown,various components can be coupled through an embedded controller 1435.Such components can include a keyboard 1436 (e.g., coupled via a PS2interface), a fan 1437, and a thermal sensor 1439. In some embodiments,touch pad 1430 may also couple to EC 1435 via a PS2 interface. Inaddition, a security processor such as a trusted platform module (TPM)1438 may also couple to processor 1410 via this LPC interconnect.

System 1400 can communicate with external devices in a variety ofmanners, including wirelessly. In the embodiment shown in FIG. 14,various wireless modules, each of which can correspond to a radioconfigured for a particular wireless communication protocol, arepresent. One manner for wireless communication in a short range such asa near field may be via a NFC unit 1445 which may communicate, in oneembodiment with processor 1410 via an SMBus. Note that via this NFC unit1445, devices in close proximity to each other can communicate.

As further seen in FIG. 14, additional wireless units can include othershort range wireless engines including a WLAN unit 1450 and a Bluetoothunit 1452. Using WLAN unit 1450, Wi-Fi™ communications can be realized,while via Bluetooth unit 1452, short range Bluetooth™ communications canoccur. These units may communicate with processor 1410 via a given link.

In addition, wireless wide area communications, e.g., according to acellular or other wireless wide area protocol, can occur via a WWAN unit1456 which in turn may couple to a subscriber identity module (SIM)1457. In addition, to enable receipt and use of location information, aGPS module 1455 may also be present. Note that in the embodiment shownin FIG. 14, WWAN unit 1456 and an integrated capture device such as acamera module 1454 may communicate via a given link.

An integrated camera module 1454 can be incorporated in the lid. Toprovide for audio inputs and outputs, an audio processor can beimplemented via a digital signal processor (DSP) 1460, which may coupleto processor 1410 via a high definition audio (HDA) link. Similarly, DSP1460 may communicate with an integrated coder/decoder (CODEC) andamplifier 1462 that in turn may couple to output speakers 1463 which maybe implemented within the chassis. Similarly, amplifier and CODEC 1462can be coupled to receive audio inputs from a microphone 1465 which inan embodiment can be implemented via dual array microphones (such as adigital microphone array) to provide for high quality audio inputs toenable voice-activated control of various operations within the system.Note also that audio outputs can be provided from amplifier/CODEC 1462to a headphone jack 1464. Although shown with these particularcomponents in the embodiment of FIG. 14, understand the scope of thepresent invention is not limited in this regard.

Embodiments may be implemented in many different system types. Referringnow to FIG. 15, shown is a block diagram of a system in accordance withan embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 15,multiprocessor system 1500 is a point-to-point interconnect system, andincludes a first processor 1570 and a second processor 1580 coupled viaa point-to-point interconnect 1550. As shown in FIG. 15, each ofprocessors 1570 and 1580 may be multicore processors, including firstand second processor cores (i.e., processors 1574 a and 1574 b andprocessor cores 1584 a and 1584 b), although potentially many more coresmay be present in the processors. Each of the processors can include aPCU 1575, 1585 to perform processor-based power management, includingthe HWP control of processor cores that directly uses OS-provided hintinformation as described herein.

Still referring to FIG. 15, first processor 1570 further includes amemory controller hub (MCH) 1572 and point-to-point (P-P) interfaces1576 and 1578. Similarly, second processor 1580 includes a MCH 1582 andP-P interfaces 1586 and 1588. As shown in FIG. 15, MCH's 1572 and 1582couple the processors to respective memories, namely a memory 1532 and amemory 1534, which may be portions of system memory (e.g., DRAM) locallyattached to the respective processors. First processor 1570 and secondprocessor 1580 may be coupled to a chipset 1590 via P-P interconnects1562 and 1564, respectively. As shown in FIG. 15, chipset 1590 includesP-P interfaces 1594 and 1598.

Furthermore, chipset 1590 includes an interface 1592 to couple chipset1590 with a high performance graphics engine 1538, by a P-P interconnect1539. In turn, chipset 1590 may be coupled to a first bus 1516 via aninterface 1596. As shown in FIG. 15, various input/output (I/O) devices1514 may be coupled to first bus 1516, along with a bus bridge 1518which couples first bus 1516 to a second bus 1520. Various devices maybe coupled to second bus 1520 including, for example, a keyboard/mouse1522, communication devices 1526 and a data storage unit 1528 such as adisk drive or other mass storage device which may include code 1530, inone embodiment. Further, an audio I/O 1524 may be coupled to second bus1520. Embodiments can be incorporated into other types of systemsincluding mobile devices such as a smart cellular telephone, tabletcomputer, netbook, Ultrabook™, or so forth.

FIG. 16 is a block diagram illustrating an IP core development system1600 that may be used to manufacture an integrated circuit to performoperations according to an embodiment. The IP core development system1600 may be used to generate modular, re-usable designs that can beincorporated into a larger design or used to construct an entireintegrated circuit (e.g., an SoC integrated circuit). A design facility1630 can generate a software simulation 1610 of an IP core design in ahigh level programming language (e.g., C/C++). The software simulation1610 can be used to design, test, and verify the behavior of the IPcore. A register transfer level (RTL) design can then be created orsynthesized from the simulation model. The RTL design 1615 is anabstraction of the behavior of the integrated circuit that models theflow of digital signals between hardware registers, including theassociated logic performed using the modeled digital signals. Inaddition to an RTL design 1615, lower-level designs at the logic levelor transistor level may also be created, designed, or synthesized. Thus,the particular details of the initial design and simulation may vary.

The RTL design 1615 or equivalent may be further synthesized by thedesign facility into a hardware model 1620, which may be in a hardwaredescription language (HDL), or some other representation of physicaldesign data. The HDL may be further simulated or tested to verify the IPcore design. The IP core design can be stored for delivery to a thirdparty fabrication facility 1665 using non-volatile memory 1640 (e.g.,hard disk, flash memory, or any non-volatile storage medium).Alternately, the IP core design may be transmitted (e.g., via theInternet) over a wired connection 1650 or wireless connection 1660. Thefabrication facility 1665 may then fabricate an integrated circuit thatis based at least in part on the IP core design. The fabricatedintegrated circuit can be configured to perform operations in accordancewith at least one embodiment described herein.

Referring now to FIG. 17, shown is an operation flow for autonomoushardware performance state control in accordance with an embodiment.Hardware circuitry of a processor, such as a HWP controller (whichitself may be included in a power controller of the processor), mayperform operation flow 1700. As such, operation flow 1700 may beexecuted by hardware circuitry, firmware, software and/or combinationsthereof.

As illustrated in FIG. 17, operation flow 1700 may be used to calculatea new target frequency (operation 1710). As will be described herein, ina particular embodiment this new target operating frequency may becalculated based at least in part on multiple parameters, including anaverage utilization value, an average frequency value and a targetutilization value. Upon calculation of the new target frequency, atblock 1720 this new target frequency may be provided to a powercontroller to cause one or more processing engines of the processor(e.g., one or more cores, graphics processors or other processing units)to execute at the target frequency. For example, a power controller mayinclude a P-state controller to cause clock generation circuitry andvoltage generation circuitry to operate at a given performance stateusing this new target frequency.

Still with reference to FIG. 17, note that the various inputs forcalculating a new target frequency, including target utilization value,average frequency and average utilization, may be provided to the HWPcontroller. In one embodiment, during runtime of the processor, anaverage frequency and an average utilization may be calculated (block1730). In embodiments, a trigger event 1735 may occur to cause thesecalculations to be performed. Although the scope of the presentinvention is not limited in this regard, in one embodiment these averagevalues may be calculated periodically according to a trigger eventoccurring at a given evaluation interval, which may be on the order ofbetween 100 microseconds and 10 milliseconds; of course other ranges oftime are possible in other embodiments. In an embodiment, the runtimecalculation of average frequency and utilization may be done accordingto an exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) function or anothermathematical model. Note that the target frequency calculation may beperformed according to another trigger event, which may be set at thesame or different evaluation interval. In an embodiment, this triggerevent may be set according to execution within a so-called P-code, whichmay be microcode stored in a non-volatile storage, e.g., accessible tothe power controller, to enable the power controller to perform variousprocessor power management operations.

Still seen in FIG. 17, at block 1750 a request may be received, e.g.,from an operating system or other system software, to set a new valuefor an energy performance preference (EPP). As an example, the OS maysend an EPP value whenever a workload change occurs, for example, whennew processes are initiated, upon a context switch or so forth. In oneembodiment, the EPP value can further be provided via XSAVE/XRESTOREinstructions and not explicitly by an OS write. Thus in an embodiment,the target utilization value may be calculated periodically or as aresult of triggering of a new target utilization. At block 1760 this EPPvalue may be used to determine the target utilization value. In oneparticular embodiment, this determination may be based on an access to alookup table with the target EPP value to identify a target utilizationvalue corresponding to the EPP value. Understand while shown at thishigh level in the embodiment of FIG. 17, many variations andalternatives are possible. Note further that the various operationblocks described in FIG. 17 may be performed in different locationswithin a power controller or other hardware circuitry of a processor andas described, these operations may be performed according to differentevaluation intervals and at different points during processor operation.

Referring now to FIG. 18, shown is a flow diagram of a method inaccordance with an embodiment of the present invention. In embodiments,method 1800 may be performed by hardware circuitry, software, firmwareand/or combinations thereof. In a particular embodiment, method 1800 maybe performed by control circuitry, e.g., of a power controller of aprocessor. As illustrated, method 1800 is a method for determiningaverage operating parameters to be used in HWP operations as describedherein.

As seen, method 1800 begins by maintaining a first counter (block 1810).This first counter is a utilization counter that, in an embodiment, maymaintain an active residency count. As such, this first counter may beconfigured to increment its count value, e.g., by one, for each clockcycle in which the corresponding processing element (e.g., core, otherprocessing engine, or overall processor) is in an active C0 state. Nextat block 1820 a second counter may be maintained. This second counter isa frequency counter that, in an embodiment, may maintain countinformation as to an operating frequency.

Then as further illustrated in FIG. 18, at diamond 1830 it is determinedwhether an evaluation window has completed. If not, further countingoperations and maintenance of these counters may occur. Otherwise if itis determined that the evaluation window (which may be on the order ofbetween approximately 100 microseconds and 10 milliseconds) hascompleted, control passes to block 1840. With an EWMA function, thistime value is used as a Tau value. Note that in some embodiments, aperiod of this time window may be derived, at least in part, from theEPP value. In other embodiments, the EPP value can be driven from othersystem parameters e.g., at a low battery state of charge, more energyefficient operation can be selected (possibly via system software). Atblock 1840, an average utilization value may be calculated. This averageutilization value is a moving average of the utilization value for theprocessor, such as an average percentage of overall processor cycles inwhich the relevant core, processing engine and/or processor was in anactive state. In turn, at block 1850 an average frequency value may becalculated. This average frequency value is a moving average of theoperating frequency of the processor overall, and/or of a relevant coreor other processing engine. At block 1860, these average values areprovided to the HWP controller. Understand while shown at this highlevel in the embodiment of FIG. 18, many variations and alternatives arepossible.

Referring now to FIG. 19, shown is a flow diagram of a method inaccordance with another embodiment of the present invention. In theembodiment of FIG. 19, method 1900 is a method for determining a targetutilization value. In an embodiment, this determination may be performedby control circuitry of a power controller, and as such may be performedby hardware circuitry, software, firmware and/or combinations thereof.

As illustrated, method 1900 begins by receiving an energy performancepreference from an operating system (block 1910). This EPP value may bereceived from the OS, e.g., in response to a context switch, creation ofa new process or thread, or in many other instances. In an embodiment,the OS may communicate this EPP value by way of an update to an HWPregister, e.g., an HWP request register. In an embodiment, the EPP valuecan be communicated by system software (e.g., driver or systemmanagement software). Control next passes to block 1820 where a targetutilization value may be determined based at least in part on thisenergy performance preference value. In one embodiment, the controlcircuitry may maintain a lookup table that has multiple entries, each ofwhich associates an EPP value (or EPP range) with a corresponding targetutilization value. As such, the received EPP value may be used to lookupa corresponding target utilization value within the lookup table. Ofcourse in other embodiments, different manners of determining a targetutilization value based on a received EPP can occur.

Still with reference to FIG. 19, control passes to block 1930 where thistarget utilization value may be provided to the HWP controller. Asdescribed herein, the HWP controller may use this target utilizationvalue in determining an appropriate target operating frequency with lowlatency and greater user responsiveness.

Referring now to FIG. 20, shown is a flow diagram of a method inaccordance with still another embodiment of the present invention. Asshown in FIG. 20, method 2000 is a method for dynamically determining atarget operating frequency during HWP operation in accordance with anembodiment. As such, method 2000 may be performed by hardware circuitry,software, firmware and/or combinations thereof, e.g., an HWP controller,which itself may be implemented in a power controller of a processor.

As illustrated, method 2000 begins by receiving a target utilizationvalue (block 2010). This target utilization value, which may be derivedas discussed above in FIG. 19, may be stored in a first storage, such asa register of the HWP controller. Next, control passes to block 2020where an average utilization value may be received and stored in asecond storage, e.g., another register of the HWP controller. Next, atblock 2030 an average frequency value may be received and stored in athird storage, e.g., yet another register of the HWP controller.Understand that in another embodiment, a single register may includemultiple fields to store the target utilization value, and the averageutilization and frequency values. And of course while shown in thisserial manner in FIG. 20, these values may be received in the HWPcontroller asynchronously, in different order or so forth.

Still referring to FIG. 20, next at block 2040 the HWP controller maycalculate a target operating frequency. In embodiments herein, thistarget operating frequency may be calculated based at least in part onthe target utilization value, average utilization value and averagefrequency value, such as in accordance with Equation 1, below.

$\begin{matrix}{F_{target} = {U_{avg}F_{avg}\frac{1 - U_{target}}{U_{target}}\frac{1}{1 - U_{avg}}}} & \left\lbrack {{EQ}.\mspace{14mu} 1} \right\rbrack\end{matrix}$

In EQ. 1, U_(target) is the utilization target, which depends only onthe EPP value; U_(avg) is the average utilization over a time window;F_(avg) is the average frequency over a time window; and F_(target) isthe calculated target frequency.

Still with reference to FIG. 20, control passes to block 2050 where oneor more processing engines may be caused to operate at this targetoperating frequency. To this end, the HWP controller, itself or viaadditional power controller circuitry, may cause one or more clockgenerators to generate clock signals (at this target operatingfrequency) for cores or other processing engines. As such, a very lowlatency and responsive update to a performance state can occur based onan update to an EPP value. In some cases, the HWP controller may, in asingle update iteration, cause a target operating frequency (and thusresulting performance state) to be adjusted from a first performancestate to a second performance state, without any intermediate steps. Inthis way, user experience may be enhanced, as the HWP operation toupdate performance state may occur nearly instantaneously, rather thanvia multiple intermediate updates to target operating frequency (andthus multiple intermediate performance states, e.g., each a givenmultiple step of the same value (e.g., an increase of four bin valuesper step)). Understand while shown at this high level in the embodimentof FIG. 20, many variations and alternatives are possible.

Referring now to FIG. 21, shown is a block diagram of a power controllerin accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Asillustrated in FIG. 21, power controller 2100 may, in an embodiment, beimplemented as a power control unit (PCU) incorporated, e.g., into amulticore processor or other SoC. In the high level view shown in FIG.21, PCU 2100 includes an HWP controller 2150 and a performance statecontroller 2180. Although only these two constituent controllers areshown for purposes of discussion of the HWP control described herein,understand that additional control circuitry, such as power budgetcontrollers, thermal or other constraint controllers or so forth, alsomay be present within PCU 2100.

In relevant part herein, PCU 2100 receives HWP information, e.g., froman OS. As illustrated, this HWP information is stored in an HWP requestregister 2105. For purposes of discussion herein, assume that this HWPinformation includes an EPP value, which may be stored in acorresponding EPP field of HWP request register 2105. In turn, this EPPvalue is used to access a lookup table 2110. In embodiments, lookuptable 2110 may include multiple entries each associating an EPP value(or range) with a target utilization value. In the illustratedembodiment, a target utilization value of a given entry may be accessedwith the received EPP value and provided to HWP controller 2150, whereit is stored in a target utilization value register 2152. Note thatlookup table 2110 in different embodiments may be stored in anon-volatile memory, or it can be stored in a volatile memory that iswritten with the entry values during boot operations (such as may beobtained from firmware) or calculated based on some formula.

As further illustrated in FIG. 21, PCU 2100 further includes a C0counter 2120. In embodiment, this counter may maintain a count ofresidency in an active C0 state of a given processing core, processingelement and/or overall processor. At a given interval, this countervalue may be provided to an averaging circuit 2125. As furtherillustrated PCU 2100 also includes a frequency counter 2130. Inembodiment, this counter may maintain count information associated withan operating frequency of a given processing core, processing elementand/or overall processor. At a given interval, this counter value may beprovided to averaging circuit 2125. Averaging circuit 2125, at aconclusion of a given averaging window, may calculate an averagefrequency and an average utilization and provide these values to HWPcontroller 2150, where they may be stored in, respectively, an averagefrequency register 2154 and an average utilization register 2156.Understand while these three registers 2152-2156 are shown forillustrative purposes, more or fewer such registers or other temporarystorages may be present in other embodiments.

Still with reference to FIG. 21, HWP controller 2150 further includes atarget frequency controller 2158, which may receive the values fromthese three registers. Based at least in part on this information,target frequency controller 2158 may calculate a target frequency atwhich one or more cores or other processing elements of the processormay operate. In turn, target frequency controller 2158 may provide thistarget frequency to performance state controller 2180. Performance statecontroller 2180 in turn may determine a performance state (namely avoltage/frequency pair) for this target frequency and generate controlsignals to cause such cores or other processing elements to operate atthe given performance state. Note that in some instances, depending uponthe target operating frequency, performance state controller 2180 alsomay identify an update to an operating voltage. To this end, understandthat the performance state control information may further includetarget operating voltage control information, which may be provided toone or more voltage regulators (e.g., one or more integrated voltageregulators and/or external voltage regulator). Understand while shown atthis high level in the embodiment of FIG. 21, many variations andalternatives are possible.

Referring now to FIG. 22, shown is a graphical illustration of improveduser responsiveness of hardware performance state control in accordancewith an embodiment. Illustration 2200 shows various parameters that areused in determining a target operating frequency and resultingperformance state. At curve 2210, an EPP hint value starts at a highvalue (e.g., a maximum value, which corresponds to a high preference forenergy efficiency over performance). As seen, during operation a changeof the EPP hint is received in which the EPP hint value is reduced,indicating a greater desire for performance at the expense of higherpower consumption. Note that this EPP hint may be provided on a perlogical processor (physical core or a software thread on simultaneousmultithreaded (SMT) core) basis and used to control performance state ona per core basis.

As a result of this EPP change, a substantially instantaneous change(increase) in target operating frequency also occurs, as indicated atcurve 2240. Note further that this target operating frequency change isfurther based on average values for operating frequency and utilization,shown at curves 2220 and 2230. With an embodiment herein in which targetoperating frequency is based at least in part on the instantaneous EPPhint value, the target operating frequency may change ratherdramatically in a single step. In contrast, typical hardware performancestate updates may be limited to one or a few bin values of frequency(e.g., where each bin value is 100 megahertz). Instead, with anembodiment herein a nearly instantaneous single iteration of a hardwareperformance state update may cause a target operating frequency changethat can be between approximately 1000 and 5000 megahertz as an example;of course other target operating frequency changes can occur indifferent implementations.

The following examples pertain to further embodiments.

In one example, a processor includes: a first core to executeinstructions; and a power controller to control power consumption of theprocessor. The power controller may include a hardware performance statecontroller to control a performance state of the first core autonomouslyto an operating system, where the hardware performance state controlleris to calculate a target operating frequency for the performance stateof the first core based at least in part on an energy performancepreference hint received from the operating system.

In an example, in response to a first update to the energy performancepreference hint, the hardware performance state controller is to updatethe performance state of the first core from a first performance stateto a second performance state in a single iteration.

In an example, the hardware performance state controller is to calculatethe target operating frequency further based on an average operatingfrequency of the first core and an average utilization value of thefirst core.

In an example, the hardware performance state controller is to access atable using the energy performance preference hint to determine a targetutilization value.

In an example, the hardware performance state controller is to calculatethe target operating frequency further based on the target utilizationvalue.

In an example, the hardware performance state controller is to determinethe target operating frequency according to:

${F_{target} = {U_{avg}F_{avg}\frac{1 - U_{target}}{U_{target}}\frac{1}{1 - U_{avg}}}},$where U_(target) is the target utilization value, U_(avg) is the averageutilization value, F_(avg) is the average operating frequency andF_(target) is the target operating frequency.

In an example, the power controller comprises: a first storage to storethe target utilization value; a second storage to store the averageoperating frequency; and a third storage to store the averageutilization value.

In an example, the power controller further comprises a performancestate controller to cause at least one clock circuit to operate at thetarget operating frequency and to cause at least one voltage regulatorto operate at an operating voltage for the performance state.

In another example, a method comprises: receiving, in a controller of aprocessor, an energy performance preference hint from an operatingsystem; determining a target utilization value using the energyperformance preference hint; calculating a target operating frequencybased at least in part on the target utilization value, an averageutilization value and an average operating frequency; and causing atleast one core of the processor to operate at a first performance state,the first performance state having the target operating frequency.

In an example, determining the target utilization value using the energyperformance preference hint comprises accessing a table using the energyperformance preference hint to obtain the target utilization value.

In an example, the method further comprises calculating the targetoperating frequency according to:

${F_{target} = {U_{avg}F_{avg}\frac{1 - U_{target}}{U_{target}}\frac{1}{1 - U_{avg}}}},$where U_(target) is the target utilization value, U_(avg) is the averageutilization value, F_(avg) is the average operating frequency andF_(target) is the target operating frequency.

In an example, the method further comprises causing the at least onecore to change from a second performance state to the first performancestate in a single update in response to calculating the target operatingfrequency.

In an example, the method further comprises: receiving the averageutilization value and storing the average utilization value in a firststorage; and receiving the average operating frequency and storing theaverage operating frequency in a second storage.

In an example, the method further comprises: calculating the averageutilization value based on a first count value according to a weightedmoving average, the first count value associated with active stateresidency of at least a portion of the processor; and calculating theaverage operating frequency based on a second count value according to aweighted moving average, the second count value associated with anoperating frequency of at least the portion of the processor.

In another example, a computer readable medium including instructions isto perform the method of any of the above examples.

In another example, a computer readable medium including data is to beused by at least one machine to fabricate at least one integratedcircuit to perform the method of any one of the above examples.

In another example, an apparatus comprises means for performing themethod of any one of the above examples.

In another example, a system includes a processor comprising: aplurality of cores to execute instructions; a first control circuit toreceive a preference hint from an operating system and calculate atarget operating frequency for at least a first core of the plurality ofcores based at least in part on the preference hint and autonomously tothe operating system; and a second control circuit to receive anindication of the target operating frequency from the first controlcircuit and in response to the indication, cause a first clock circuitassociated with the first core to operate at the target operatingfrequency, where the second control circuit is to independently controla performance state of at least some of the plurality of cores. Thesystem may further include a dynamic random access memory coupled to theprocessor, where the dynamic random access memory is to store at least aportion of the operating system.

In an example, the first control circuit is to calculate the targetoperating frequency further based on an average operating frequency ofthe first core and an average utilization value of the first core.

In an example, the first control circuit is to calculate the targetoperating frequency further based on a target utilization value of thefirst core.

In an example, the system further comprises a storage to store a tablehaving a plurality of entries, each of the plurality of entries toassociate a preference hint with a target utilization value.

In an example, the first control circuit is to use the preference hintto access a first target utilization value stored in a first entry ofthe plurality of entries.

In an example, the system further comprises a power controller, wherethe power controller is to determine at least one of the averageoperating frequency and the average utilization value at a periodicinterval, the periodic interval based at least in part on the preferencehint.

Note that the terms “circuit” and “circuitry” are used interchangeablyherein. As used herein, these terms and the term “logic” are used torefer to alone or in any combination, analog circuitry, digitalcircuitry, hard wired circuitry, programmable circuitry, processorcircuitry, microcontroller circuitry, hardware logic circuitry, statemachine circuitry and/or any other type of physical hardware component.Embodiments may be used in many different types of systems. For example,in one embodiment a communication device can be arranged to perform thevarious methods and techniques described herein. Of course, the scope ofthe present invention is not limited to a communication device, andinstead other embodiments can be directed to other types of apparatusfor processing instructions, or one or more machine readable mediaincluding instructions that in response to being executed on a computingdevice, cause the device to carry out one or more of the methods andtechniques described herein.

Embodiments may be implemented in code and may be stored on anon-transitory storage medium having stored thereon instructions whichcan be used to program a system to perform the instructions. Embodimentsalso may be implemented in data and may be stored on a non-transitorystorage medium, which if used by at least one machine, causes the atleast one machine to fabricate at least one integrated circuit toperform one or more operations. Still further embodiments may beimplemented in a computer readable storage medium including informationthat, when manufactured into a SoC or other processor, is to configurethe SoC or other processor to perform one or more operations. Thestorage medium may include, but is not limited to, any type of diskincluding floppy disks, optical disks, solid state drives (SSDs),compact disk read-only memories (CD-ROMs), compact disk rewritables(CD-RWs), and magneto-optical disks, semiconductor devices such asread-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMs) such as dynamicrandom access memories (DRAMs), static random access memories (SRAMs),erasable programmable read-only memories (EPROMs), flash memories,electrically erasable programmable read-only memories (EEPROMs),magnetic or optical cards, or any other type of media suitable forstoring electronic instructions.

While the present invention has been described with respect to a limitednumber of embodiments, those skilled in the art will appreciate numerousmodifications and variations therefrom. It is intended that the appendedclaims cover all such modifications and variations as fall within thetrue spirit and scope of this present invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: a processor comprising: a plurality of cores to execute instructions; and a power controller coupled to the plurality of cores, wherein the power controller comprises: a first control circuit to receive a preference hint generated from an operating system and calculate a target operating frequency for at least a first core of the plurality of cores based at least in part on the preference hint; and a second control circuit to receive an indication of the target operating frequency and in response to the indication, cause a first clock circuit to output a clock signal to cause the first core to operate at the target operating frequency, wherein the second control circuit is to independently control a performance state of at least some of the plurality of cores; and a management controller coupled to the processor, the management controller to perform platform level power management and issue one or more power management requests to the processor.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the first control circuit is to calculate the target operating frequency further based on an average operating frequency of the first core and an average utilization value of the first core.
 3. The system of claim 2, wherein the first control circuit is to calculate the target operating frequency further based on a target utilization value of the first core.
 4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a storage to store a table having a plurality of entries, each of the plurality of entries to associate a preference hint with a target utilization value, the first control circuit to use the preference hint to access a first target utilization value stored in a first entry of the plurality of entries.
 5. The system of claim 1, wherein the first control circuit is to receive the performance hint having a value to indicate a relative preference between performance and energy conservation, the operating system to generate the performance hint.
 6. The processor of claim 5, wherein in response to a first update to the value of the preference hint, the second control circuit is to update a performance state of the first core from a first performance state to a second performance state in a single iteration.
 7. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having stored thereon instructions, which if performed by a machine, cause the machine to perform a method comprising: receiving, in a controller of a processor, an energy performance preference hint from an operating system; determining a target utilization value using the energy performance preference hint; calculating a target operating frequency based at least in part on the target utilization value, an average utilization value and an average operating frequency; and causing at least one core of the processor to operate at a first performance state, the first performance state having the target operating frequency.
 8. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 7, wherein determining the target utilization value using the energy performance preference hint comprises accessing a table using the energy performance preference hint to obtain the target utilization value.
 9. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the method further comprises calculating the target operating frequency according to: ${F_{target} = {U_{avg}F_{avg}\frac{1 - U_{target}}{U_{target}}\frac{1}{1 - U_{avg}}}},$ wherein U_(target) is the target utilization value, U_(avg) is the average utilization value, F_(avg) is the average operating frequency and F_(target) is the target operating frequency.
 10. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the method further comprises causing the at least one core to change from a second performance state to the first performance state in a single update in response to calculating the target operating frequency.
 11. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the method further comprises: calculating the average utilization value based on a first count value according to a first weighted moving average, the first count value associated with active state residency of at least a portion of the processor; and calculating the average operating frequency based on a second count value according to a second weighted moving average, the second count value associated with an operating frequency of at least the portion of the processor. 